News

Maine Gun Safety Coalition responds to first mass shooting in Maine.

MGSC announces 2022 Gun Safety Leaders

Federal law in response to the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde law is a significant step, but few states ban the purchase of long guns for the age group of the perpetrators. Maine is not one of them.

At the White House to celebrate historic gun legislation .

The Portland Press Herald has now covered the story of how the worst mass shooting in Canadian history was abetted by Maine's dangerously lax gun laws and the ubiquity of firearms in the state. The MGSC Board, and indeed all of Maine is lucky to have Margaret Groban to once again speak so knowledgeably on this tragic story.

The CDC has now confirmed what many outlets have previously reported: America's gun violence crisis is spiraling out of control. The massive surge in gun sales during the beginning of the pandemic, coupled with the loosening of gun laws and regulations around the country since then will only make things worse going forward.

Unfortunately it is no surprise that in a state awash in guns and with massive loopholes in our background check, and gun sale and transfer laws, Maine played a role in this tragedy.

MGSC Executive Director Geoff Bickford spoke with the Times Record about the gun safety training program being offered by the Sagadoahoc Sheriff's Office.

Guns became the leading cause of death among children and teens in 2020, killing more people ages 1 to 19 in the U.S. than vehicle crashes, drugs overdoses or cancer.

MGSC applauds the Biden Administration for taking the long-overdue action of regulating ghost guns as what they are: not parts, not kits, not regular hobbyist gun smithing, but guns.

Be sure to check out this excellent interview in the Portland Press Herald with Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center and director of the California Firearm Violence Research Center, discussing the relationship between the massive surge in gun sales during the peak of the Covid 19 pandemic and the subsequent spike in firearm-involved crimes.

Last week saw one bright spot in the passage of the $1.5 trillion dollar budget: Congress allocated “$25 million allocation for gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. It’s the third year in a row for federal gun violence research funding since it was restarted in 2019 after a decades-long embargo.”

Ethan's law/HR 748 which is nearly identical to Maine's own firearm safe storage law, and which will protect kids nationwide from unsecured, loaded firearms, now has BI-PARTISAN CO-SPONSORSHIP!

Firearm deaths have overtaken car crashes are the leading cause of death by trauma in the US according to a new report published in the journal Trauma Surgery and Acute Care Open.

Maine Gun Safety Coalition Executive Director Geoff Bickford spoke with WMTW ABC Portland about Maine's well-deserved "F" rating for its gun safety laws (or lack thereof) from the Giffords Law Center. Although progress has been made with the founding of the legislature's Gun Safety Caucus and the enactment of a safe storage law last year, there is still much work to be done.

More on the landmark settlement between Sandy Hook families and the insurers of Remington Arms from the Washington Post, and our thanks to the families.

As this great op-ed in the New York Times states: "Charging the parents of the teenager, Ethan Crumbley, won’t solve America’s epidemic of school shootings, but it could be an important step in averting some of these unspeakable tragedies. Holding parents criminally accountable for failing to secure guns in their homes might encourage them to be more responsible."

The National Rifle Association of America shrank significantly through the first eight months of 2021, according to detailed financial records obtained by The Reload. The contraction came in membership, revenue, and program services across the organization. The group’s income missed the mark against its own budget projections and against what it brought in over the same period in 2020. At the same time, spending on legal services exceeded both.

Nearly 6,000 guns were found in carry-on luggage at checkpoints nationwide in 2021, breaking a record set just two years earlier, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

The data are pointing to one major driver of America’s murder spike: a massive increase in gun sales in early 2020.

The number of gun deaths in America hit an all-time high in 2020, owing mostly to an increase in homicides, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A total of 45,222 people died of gunshot wounds — a 14 percent jump from 2019 and the largest year-over-year rise on record.

The number of children and teenagers killed by gunfire has risen sharply during the coronavirus pandemic. Researchers describe the increase as a fatal consequence of rising nationwide homicide rates, untreated traumas of Covid-19 and a surge of pandemic gun-buying that is putting more children into close contact with guns — both as victims and those wielding guns.

In 2021, there were 42 acts of gun violence committed on K-12 campuses during regular hours in 2021, the most during any year since at least 1999. The nation smashed the previous record of 30, despite most schools remaining closed to in-person classes for the first two months of the year. In total, about 34,000 students were exposed to gun violence in 2021, bringing the tally since the Columbine High massacre to more than 285,000.

Hats off to the Biden/Harris Administration and the DOJ for two new rules that will help improve gun safety, especially in the area of safe storage.